February 23, 2017

VMHD and 4k coverage

It was recently suggested that I update the focus of this blog (which is ten years’ old later this year) to campaign for more 4k content on Virgin Media, much like I originally did for HD. I’ve given it some thought but will keep it running with general Virgin Media TV news (including HD, Netflix and any 4k content) rather than running a 4k or HDR campaign. I’m more than happy to support anyone who wants to campaign and can help promote one on VMHD but I don’t have the time (nor a 4k TV) to run one myself.
Nialli

9 comments:

Virgin don't have any of their own TV channels, so they can hardly be blamed for the lack of 4k content. Only BT sports and Sky have a 4k channel and are keeping them to themselves at the moment. The day BBC or ITV etc start broadcasting in 4K, is the time to start asking Virgin to cover it. Judging by the appalling picture quality on some SD channels, PQ seems fairly low on the list of priorities. On that note, does anyone know why some SD channels are such poor quality on Virgin. I noticed Sky 2 was really bad. SD is able to show a good picture is the bite rate is high enough. Does SKY save money by getting Virgin to use a low bit rate?

VM's sd channels are such low quality. I suspect they try get away with as low a bit rate as possible. As an example, I watch 'sd' sky sports via NowTV live streaming and the pic quality is superior in every way (and I would argue close to HD) to the virgin SD equivalent (60" Samsung)

I'm very impressed with the picture quality on the Roku/Now TV box, especially the OnDemand content. It's actually 720p rather than SD (which I think is 480i). NowTV looks fine on my 42" Sony and my NowTV box is one of the original white ones. We have a 22" TV in our basement and VM's SD looks okay on that. Most Virgin SD is on a par with Freeview SD to my eyes - good for BBC and 4 channels but very poor on most others.

I agree that Now TV picture quality is good for on demand content, but anyone intending to use it for the live channel streams should be aware that they are all SD not 720p (unless you are using an Apple TV, in which case it's all 720p).

From looking at TV programming most of the US TV shows that are in UHD are being made by Amazon or Netflix, not many network shows are even in 1080p yet. UHD seems to be mainly Sports and Movies and of course BT and Sky have the premium sports which they won't want to give their competitive advantage away to their competitors. Hopefully we will get some UHD motorsports from F1 now that it is owned by the same people who own Virgin Media, I can't really see Sky risking losing it completely for not supplying it to Virgin Media and hopefully some more deals for other sports content.